Marion Wiese

Doctoral Project: Sustainably establishing a  technical debt management process

In our previous interview study, we found that IT managers 

• think that technical debt management (TDM) is an important topic,
• concede that establishing a TDM process is their duty and
• have the capabilities in form of  budget and time responsibility to establish such a process.

However, non of our interviewees had a TDM process set up. This is called a status quo bias, i.e. a cognitive bias that presents itself as an irrational preference for maintaining the current state of things.

The aim of this project is to develop and evaluate in practice a guideline that describes how to create and maintain awareness of TD and how to implement a TDM process.
The guideline should combine the individual TD activities (recognizing, recording, prioritizing, repaying, etc.) into a sustainable TDM and be transferable to different contexts (companies, meeting structures and issue trackers), with a focus on agile companies/teams and a collaborative design of the TDMprocess.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. How can a TDM be established sustainably?
   a. What steps are necessary for this?
   b. What obstacles are there and how can they be circumvented?
   c. What are the similarities and differences in different companies/contexts?
2. Can the introduction of a TDM raise awareness of TD?
   a. What impact does the TDM have on which stakeholders?
   b. Are there differences in different companies/contexts?
3. What effects, e.g. prevention of TD, discussion culture, decision-making, etc., does a TDM have?

To answer these research question, I will perform action research studies in three teams of three different companies introducing a TDM process in five steps. Each step includes a workshop to make decisions based on the teams preferences, follow-up action, and evaluations of the actions effects.  Based on these results, I will then create a guideline (possibly an online course) on how to establish a TDM process and evaluate this on two more teams from the same companies.

This project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany as part of the Software Campus.

 

2025

Einführungsvortrag ins Management technischer Schulden , Flyeralarm / IT-Abteilung, 25.06.2025 (gepl.), M. Wiese

2024

Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop - Refarming Technical Debt, 03.11.2025 - 08.11.2025, Organized by  Paris Avgeriou, Ipek Ozkaya, Heiko Koziolek, Zadia Codabux, and Neil Ernst

Dagstuhl Report

Dagstuhl Manifesto (tbc)

Einführungsvortrag ins Management technischer Schulden , RTL / IT-Abteilung, 04.09.2024, M. Wiese

UNSTRUCK Business Games, 20.06.2024, "Das TechDebt Game", (Spiel+Diskussion), Marion Wiese und Nino Rusieshvilli
-- ausgefallen --

2023

SEACON Softwareengineering + architecture conference, 05.12.2024, "Technische Schulden verstehen, managen und dem Business erklären"  (Vortrag+Diskussion), Marion Wiese

summit (ehem. Softwareforum Leipzig), Community Days  "Softwarearchitektur & Softwareentwicklung" , 23.05.2023, "Technische Schulden verstehen, managen und dem Business erklären" (Vortrag+Diskussion), Marion Wiese

2022

solutions, 09.09.2022, "Wie sag ich’s meinem Business? Technische Schulden verstehen und erklären" (Vortrag+Diskussion),  Marion Wiese

2021

womENcourage; 23.09.2021, "Industry Case Studies – Bridging the Gap between Researchers and Practitioners" (Workshop) Marion Wiese, Klara Borowa, Dalila Tamzalit, and Claudine Allen

solutionsXDILK, 03.09.2021, " Technische Schulden und Projektziele im Gleichgewicht" (Vortrag+Diskussion) Marion Wiese und Prof. Dr. Matthias Riebisch

Reviews for journals:

• Empirical software engineering
• The Journal of Systems and Software
• Communications of the Association for Information Systems

Since 2024: 

 International Conference on Technical Debt (TechDebt), Program Chair

Since 2022:

European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA), Program Chair, Industry Program

Software Campus Micro Project "Management technischer Schulden"

Ein Leitfaden zur nachhaltigen Einführung eines Managements technischer Schulden durch Erhöhung und Erhaltung des Bewusstseins. (A guide to the sustainable introduction of technical debt management by raising and maintaining awareness)

Funded by the BMBF FKZ: 01IS24031

Sommersemester 2025

Software Entwicklung II (64-012 / Inf-B-SE2) (Organisationsteam)

Wintersemester 2024/2025

Integriertes Seminar Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (62-427 / InfM-SWA)

Sommersemester 2024

Übungen zu Software Entwicklung II (64-012 / Inf-B-SE2)

Wintersemester 2023/2024

Integriertes Seminar Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (62-427 / InfM-SWA)

Sommersemester 2024

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Wintersemester 2022/2023

Vorlesung Projektmanagement (Vertretung) (64-100 / InfB-PM)
Integriertes Seminar Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (62-427 / InfM-SWA)

Sommersemester 2022

Integriertes Seminar Software Reengineering (64-449 / InfM-SRE)
Vorlesung Projektmanagement (Vertretung) (64-100 / InfB-PM)

Wintersemester 2021/2022 

Vorlesung Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (64-426 / InfM-SWA)
Integriertes Seminar Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (62-427 / InfM-SWA)
Masterprojekt Software-Engineering (Teil 2) (64-860 P2 / InfM-SE)

Sommersemester 2020

Masterprojekt Software-Engineering (Teil 1) (64-860 P1 / InfM-SE)
Integriertes Seminar Software-Engineering (64-860 S / InfM-SE)
Übungen zu Software Entwicklung II (64-012 / InfB-SE2)

Wintersemester 2020/2021

• Integriertes Seminar Architekturzentrierte Softwareentwicklung (64-427/ InfM-SWA)

Sommersemester 2020

• Integriertes Seminar Software Reengineering (64-449 / InfM-SRE)
• Übungen zu Software Entwicklung II (64-012 / Inf-B-SE2)

2020 - now	Universität Hamburg, FB Informatik Research assistant and PhD student Thesis: "Establishing Technical Debt Management Processes in practice"
2001- 2020	Gruner+Jahr GmbH & Co KG  Software Architect / Senior Developer 2018 - 2020: AdAlliance defining and optimizing the integration architecture for a system of systems (Informatica Power Center, BizTalk) 2012 - 2020: Media Analytics and Research System (MARS) architecture, development and maintainance of a business intelligence application to replace the legacy system (MSSQLServer, Star Schema- and Data Vault Modelling, ETL: Informatica Power Center + SSIS, Automic Workflow Engine, SAP Powerdesigner) 2010-2012: PZ-Online support and maintainance of www.pz-online.de including a master data managment tool (C#/dotNet, Perl, CGI, PHP) 2005-2009: ITIL Introduction tool development and support for incident, change, problem and configuration management including a master data managment tool (rule-based development, C#/dotNet) 2001- 2005 KIMBA - magazin subscription management development and project management focussing accounting and international payment transactions (incl. euro-conversion project) (C++, Oracle PL/SQL)
2000 - 2001	Gruner+Jahr GmbH & Co KG Student Assistent KIMBA - magazin subscription management
2000	Otto GmbH & Co KG Intern Database application (Access 2000)
1998 - 1999	Universität Hamburg, FB Informatik, AB Angewandte und Sozialorientierte Informatik Student Assistent ECOBAS project (C)
1997 - 1998	Spar Handels AG Working Student Quality Assurance

1994 - 2001

Universität Hamburg, FB Informatik Diplom-Student Diplom-Thesis "Konzeption und Implementation einer Konvertierers zur Umsetzung von strukturierten Modellbeschreibungen in ausführbare Simulationsprogramme am Beispiel ökologischer Teilmodelle"